This invention relates to a cabana construction formed of thin sheets of plastic material used for portable toilets or other small, portable building structures. An example of such a cabana is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,351, issued Mar. 25, 1986 to George W. Harding for a Portable Toilet Cabana.
Portable toilet cabanas, as for example, the type disclosed in the above-mentioned patent, may be formed of four walls made of thin, sheet plastic material, whose side edges are connected together to form a generally square enclosure. An opening formed in one of the walls provides a doorway within which a suitable door may be hingedly mounted.
The walls may be manufactured by vacuum-forming relatively large, thin sheets of a suitable plastic material, such as a polyethylene-type plastic. The walls are generally flat, but may include indentations or other impressed or embossed design and structural formations. Thus, each of the walls, excluding the wall with the door, is a substantially monolithic sheet of plastic whose height defines the height of the cabana enclosure and whose width defines the width dimension of the cabana enclosure.
There is a practical limitation on the size of the wall-forming sheets of plastic, depending upon the thickness of the sheet, because the plastic is relatively resilient and tends to buckle or flex excessively when its size is excessive. The height of a cabana used for toilet purposes is within the range of a person standing upright, but the width or depth of a cabana can be varied up to the point where the width of the wall-forming sheets exceeds the limit where the sheet tends to buckle or bend. While the limit may be increased by increasing the wall thickness of the sheet, since plastic is relatively expensive in the quantity needed for a cabana, it is desirable to keep the sheets at the minimal thickness dimension which is practical for this type of cabana construction, while obtaining a maximum depth and width cabana with a given sheet of a given plastic material.
In some types of cabana constructions, as for example, a cabana large enough for wheelchair-bound users, or which otherwise requires a large size enclosure, it is desirable to exceed the wall width limits that are attainable, at a reasonable cost, with four sheet plastic walls. Thus, this invention is concerned with increasing the enclosure size of a cabana, without increasing the wall widths, by means of connecting the wall edges together with narrow, substantially flat or somewhat curved panels so as to generate a larger, irregular octagon-like shaped enclosure. The enclosure shape has alternating wide and narrow sides which, are rigidified by integral column-like support elements. This permits an increase in the enclosure width and depth dimensions without requiring excessive plastic and without exceeding the practical width limits of the walls.